Dancing to One Tune
by LisaT
Summary: In the aftermath of "The Inspector Calls" Constance Hardbroom reflects on her career, her past, and the nature of her relationship with two pupils in particular.


This is my first story in the WW fandom, and, like many of you, I've fallen in love with the character of Miss Hardbroom as played by Kate Duchene. This piece takes place in the immediate aftermath of _The Inspector Calls_, and should be canonically correct (insofar as any character piece can be) up to _The Millennium Bug_. I've only seen a few eps from season three.

Enjoy, and please do review.

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_**Dancing to One Tune **_

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Constance Hardbroom leaned against the back of her bedroom door as it closed with a soft click. Her usually rigid posture slumped, and with a weary wave of one hand she summoned the pins that anchored her tightly plaited hair in a large bun at the top of her head.

It had been a very long and rather dreadful day, with Hecketty Broomhead's long nose and suspicious eyes prying into every nook and cranny, her clipped voice dripping menace and venom with every syllable.

_I hope I don't sound like that_, Constance thought, and acknowledged to herself that, on occasion, she probably did. Especially when she was talking to Mildred Hubble.

As the day wore on, Constance had felt her hard-won self confidence and professionalism erode, and she knew that a number of her sharper pupils would have noted her uncharacteristic diffidence when confronted by the Inspector.

_I taught you everything you know ... such a promising student ... such a disappointment.._

Constance shivered as she remembered her experiences as Hecketty Broomhead's protegee during her time at the Witches' Training Academy. At the time, she had not thought her unduly cruel, but then the young Constance had known little of gentleness or kindness in her short life. Her formidable grandmother had demanded instant and unquestioning obedience at all times, and the consequences of disobedience had been severe. Hecketty's similar attitude had come as no surprise, even though the previous summer – the last summer of Constance's childhood – had been a breath of fresh air, taking place as it did in the Edinburgh home of her mother's McGonagall cousins after her grandmother's death. There she had known a brisk kindness that had indirectly inspired her choice of career, and the memories of that time sustained her in the years that followed.

In retrospect, however, Constance could see that Hecketty's interest had not been entirely unwelcome. The tutor had sensed her potential, and had worked rigorously to enable her to fulfil that potential, even though Constance's older self now knew those methods to be cruel and unusual.

Not unlike Hecketty herself.

It had been quite a revelation to discover that Hecketty Broomhead was a fabricated persona, and that her real identity was that of one Wilhelmina Wormwood, a contemporary of Amelia Cackle's at the Witches' Academy. A contemporary, moreover, who had been expelled for endangering the lives of her fellow pupils and harassing the staff, to put it mildly.

It was disconcerting to realise that the hard, no-nonsense demeanour that Constance had admired and adopted as her own said less about Hecketty's teaching qualities, and more about the intrinsic meanness of her personality. Hecketty had taught Constance, by example, that a teacher should be hated and feared, and that these things indicated a healthy respect. Love simply did not enter the equation. And so these past twenty years Constance had mentally looked down on her gentle superior, and openly denigrated Davina Bat and Imogen Drill for their lenient approach in the classroom. She had prided herself on the fact that her own classes were invariably well-behaved, that her mere appearance could instantly result in silence.

For the first time, Constance found herself thinking, wistfully, that it would be pleasant to see her students' faces light up with pleasure when she entered a room.

A rueful smile curved her lips as she imagined the probable response of her second years should she decide to teach in Amelia's style, or Davina's. Most of them would be frankly disbelieving. A number – Ruby Cherrytree, for example, or Enid Nightshade – would be suspicious. Ethel and Drusilla would be appalled. And Maud Moonshine and Mildred Hubble... The former would be cautiously optimistic, because Maud Moonshine liked to look on the bright side of life, while at the same time being practical enough to realise that things are not always what they seem, but Mildred ..

Constance realised that she had involuntarily clamped her lips into a thin line at the mere thought of Mildred Hubble. Mildred, with her clumsy height and untidy hair and untied bootlaces ... Mildred, who was invariably either in trouble, or plotting it. With the best of intentions, naturally, but that did not make the child any the less infuriating.

Mildred, she acknowledged to herself, would take any kindness from Constance herself on faith alone, without question or doubt.

Constance unbuttoned the high neck of her black gown and sank into the old armchair in the corner of her room. It was the only touch of luxury or comfort that she possessed, and even that was there by Amelia's command rather than her own volition.

It was time to reflect on her relationship with the 'worst witch' in the School. The girl's bad points were easy enough to enumerate. She was frequently careless at best and dangerously heedless at worst. She lacked application. She had a positive genius for getting herself, her friends, and indeed, the entire school, into trouble.

Of course, she also had a positive genius for getting herself and everyone else out of it. And therein lay the rub. Constance could forgive Mildred her height, her clumsiness, her undisciplined behaviour, for Constance herself had been guilty of these things as a girl. With one exception. There was no benevolent agency watching over Constance to protect her from the worst consequences of her actions, as there all too often was for Mildred, and it was that she could not forgive. Mildred's positively uncanny luck.

To compensate, she found herself favouring Ethel and Drusilla. Both girls were academically inclined, especially Ethel. And in truth, Ethel was in many ways the girl that her form-mistress had longed to be – effortlessly clever, pretty in a sharp way, and confident with the confidence that comes from wealth and a doting family. Yet Constance was not blind to Ethel's faults. She just preferred to overlook them, much in the same way that she chose to overlook Mildred's very real virtues. She did honestly try to rebuke the former for her transgressions, and praise the latter for her achievements, but it had to be admitted that it was often with an ill grace.

Constance realised that after all, she did not actively dislike Mildred. In fact, in her own way, she was fond of the girl. Mildred was exasperating as a pupil, but she was also rather endearing.

Once again, she wondered whether she could change her attitude to the girl and her friends, become less unyielding, less inflexible. Discipline was all well and good, but there could be a fine line between keeping good discipline and simple cruelty, especially when one was in a position of power over relatively defenceless children in the enclosed environment of a boarding school.

She knew that Hecketty Broomhead had crossed that fine line, and that she herself had come dangerously close to crossing it on more than one occasion. Yet Hecketty had taught her only one tune to dance to, and she was too old, she felt, too much a creature of habit, to learn any other.

Constance's fingers strayed to the long plait that reached almost to her lap, and she began to unthread the weave, enjoying the relaxation that came when the ever-present tension on her scalp was eased.

She quirked her lips in another smile. Perhaps she was too old to change her life's tune, but there were other ways of modifying a piece of music without changing it unalterably from the original. Pitch, for example. Or tempo.

She would at least try.

-end.


End file.
